by Geoff Dyer
Sahra was equally unaware of this – for precisely the opposite reason: she could not conceive of her lover not being a friend. To Sahra her lover was, above all else, a friend, her best friend. Alex came to realize this only negatively: he found himself thinking of Sahra as a friend rather than lover. They had known each other only a short time, they were in love, but something was missing. The first time they had gone to bed together they had said it would take time to get used to each other. Now they had got used to each other, but getting used to each other also meant getting used to there being something missing between them – and what was missing was so subtle that it was almost impossible to isolate or talk about. It wasn’t Sahra’s fault, it wasn’t Alex’s, but even in their moments of greatest arousal they were still there, still themselves. Sahra had had many lovers: was it always like this for her? Alex knew that it had not always been like this for him. Alex could talk to no one about this: to have talked to Luke would have been to have betrayed Sahra; the only person he could talk to was Sahra and he couldn’t talk to her. How did she feel? Was she feeling the same? He didn’t know. He didn’t know because she did not know how to ask him if he too felt as she did: namely that there wasn’t that perpetual flow of longing between them – that flow which anyone could sense passing between Luke and Nicole.
Who existed in a trance of longing, inhabited a state of constant wanting. Everything had been perfect from the first night they spent together. Neither of them knew why. It had just happened like that. And it continued happening like that.
‘There’s a bun for every burger,’ was the best explanation Nicole could come up with.
‘Where on earth did you pick up that expression?’
‘I heard it somewhere. I forget.’ She went on crunching her salad. Luke – who had finished his salad and loved reminiscing about their first date, their first night together – tried another tack.
‘Don’t you think it’s strange that we didn’t have safe sex that first night?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you normally?’
‘I don’t normally sleep with people.’
‘How many men have you slept with?’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just a question that is there, waiting to be asked or not asked.’
‘But it’s not not being asked is it? You are asking.’
‘So . . . How many?’
‘Three,’ she said, finishing her salad.
‘Three!’ Luke laughed. ‘You’re kidding. Is that including me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wow!’
‘Why you laugh?’
‘Because,’ he tittered, ‘it’s so few.’
‘And how many women have you slept with?’
‘More than three.’ Her face went blank with hurt. He put his arm around her, laughing still. He kissed her cheek, her ear.
‘Why you laugh?’
‘Because . . . Well, I mean. How did you learn so much about sex?’
‘I didn’t learn anything. You think it’s like exams? You think you passed lots of exams?’
‘No. It’s lovely. You’re lovely.’
‘So how many?’
‘How many what?’
‘How many exams you have passed?’ Her English deteriorated quickly when she became angry.
‘Oh I don’t know.’
‘Many?’
‘Not that many,’ said Luke. ‘But more than three!’
Her eyes blazed with anger. She pushed him away, walked to the bathroom and shut the door quietly: a tacit slam. Luke tried the door: it was unlocked.
‘Get out!’ She raised her fist and, for a moment, Luke was sure she was going to hit him. Instead she focused her rage on the toilet seat. She gripped it with both hands and – whether accidentally or deliberately was impossible to tell – tore it free of the bowl and threw it out of the door.
‘That was the most bizarre display of temper I have ever seen,’ said Luke. He went out to retrieve the toilet seat. When he came back she was sitting on the cold porcelain, knickers around her ankles, crying.
‘Interesting. You’re one of those women who can cry and piss at the same time.’
‘I’m not pissing. And I’m not crying. I’m sort of cry-laughing.’
‘I brought you a present,’ he said, handing her the toilet seat. She stood up and he slid it beneath her.
‘Let me feel you piss,’ he said, putting his hand between her legs.
‘No!’
‘Listen, the reason I find it funny that you’ve only slept with three people is, well, because I’ve never met anyone sexier than you.’
‘So it’s not just about passing exams. You get grades as well.’
‘Nine out of ten.’
‘Only nine?’
‘You only get ten if I can feel you piss.’ He touched her.
‘I’m still angry.’
‘Piss through my fingers.’
‘I can’t.’
He kissed her cheek. Then pressed his mouth against her ear, shaping once again the words they had never said aloud to each other. Aloud, he said, ‘You really do have a temper.’
‘I hit my brother over the head with my uncle’s trumpet once.’
‘Why?’
‘It was the only thing within reach.’
‘I meant why’d you hit him?’
‘He stole my sweets and wouldn’t give them back.’
‘Not like me. I didn’t have a brother to steal my sweets. Or a sister. So I gorged myself on sweets all day long.’
They kissed. She moved her hands under the sleeves of his T-shirt. He pulled her dress up so that he could see her stomach, her pubic hair.
‘I can’t see you. I want to see you piss.’
‘How?’
‘In the bath.’ They undressed. Nicole stood with one foot on each side of the bath and lowered herself down, using her hands for support. His prick reached up towards her.
‘Now.’
‘I’m trying,’ she laughed. ‘It’s too ridiculous.’
‘Doesn’t it turn you on?’
‘Hmm. I don’t know.’ He raised his hips so that his prick was touching her. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘If you do that I can’t. I have to concentrate.’ She shut her eyes. A few drips sprang from her, on to his prick and stomach.
‘More.’ There was another pulse of urine and then she was flooding over him. He pushed up and into her. Her balance was precarious. Luke’s back and shoulders began burning with the strain of keeping himself arched up like this and it was only by concentrating on that pain that he could stop himself coming and then he could hold back no longer. His arms gave way. Nicole collapsed on to him. He fell back into the tepid wash of piss at the bottom of the bath. In the space of a few seconds urine had reverted to its customary lavatorial character.
‘I didn’t come,’ said Nicole, clambering off him. ‘And now I don’t think I want to.’
‘Perhaps we should have a bath,’ he said.
In November Luke received a letter from the photographer saying that he was obliged to return to the city, would have to move back into his apartment ‘sooner than anticipated’. The letter was phrased like this in order to suggest that their arrangement had been vague, flexible, even though the photographer had been adamant about renting his place for a year. In different circumstances Luke would have refused to budge. As it was it made little difference because he and Nicole were spending almost every night together, usually at her place which was bigger, nicer. Luke wrote back to the photographer and claimed that he was being severely inconvenienced. He’d counted on being there a year, he said, had even spent money on having the bike repaired. The photographer phoned and offered to let him off three weeks’ rent. And Luke could keep the bike, he said.
‘Actually,’ said Luke, ‘there is one other thing I would like, if that’s OK.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A print of one of your photographs. The one
of the demonstration.’
‘You like that picture?’
‘I love it,’ said Luke.
‘I’m flattered,’ said the photographer.
‘When did you take it, by the way?’
‘I can’t remember exactly. But I’d only been in Bucharest a day—’
‘Bucharest?’
‘I’d just got in and this demonstration blew up and I shot off a whole roll of film. There were a couple of good shots but that one on the wall was far and away the best. Anyway, I can get you a copy no problem,’ said the photographer
‘That would be great,’ said Luke. ‘Thank you.’ He hung up and called Nicole. ‘You know that picture?’ he said. ‘The Belgrade one.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was taken in Bucharest.’
‘No!’
‘I just spoke to the photographer.’
‘I did go to Bucharest once.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Ten.’
‘It’s funny isn’t it, how we persuaded ourselves that it was you?’
‘Perhaps it is me. A Romanian me. There might be several of me.’
‘There could never be another you,’ sang Luke.
A few days later he moved into her apartment. Luke’s only concern about this change in circumstances was that he now had little or no chance of protecting his property. Nicole had a knack of filling her apartment and life with things that delighted Luke – love someone, love their possessions had become something of a motto for him – and there were times when Luke would see her spectacle-case (i.e. her wallet) or her red string shopping bag, or one of her hats or shoes lying on the floor of her apartment and be so overcome with love for her that he felt like weeping. They were her things. Everything she touched became suffused with her personality. Nicole herself was aware of this capacity she had to lay claim to objects.
‘I only need to have something for two minutes and it’s completely mine,’ she said to Luke as they unpacked his few belongings.
‘You mean it’s completely broken. Broken or lost.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Robust objects become fragile. Immovable objects disappear.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It is actually. What about my sunglasses that you borrowed two days ago?’
‘I haven’t broken them.’
‘No. And the reason for that is that you lost them before you had a chance to break them.’
‘They’re not lost. I just mislaid them.’
‘No, you lost them. Mislaid means you know where they are but you can’t put your finger on them.’
‘Exactly. I’ve mislaid them somewhere in the city.’
The days grew shorter. It became cold. As promised, the photographer mailed a print of the picture of the demonstration which they framed and put on the wall. Nicole was finishing her studies and had begun applying for jobs. With Christmas deadlines looming the warehouse became busier than it had been for months. Lazare was under a lot of pressure and therefore happy. Luke and Alex worked late. The flu season started. Nicole stayed in bed for three days, coughing constantly. At night the sheets became so drenched and cold with her sweat that they had to get up and change them. Luke resigned himself to catching Nicole’s flu and as soon as she felt well enough to get up he began to feel lousy. He still felt bad when he felt better. Alex avoided flu but went down with a cold that, at any other time of year, would have passed for flu. Sahra remained healthy which was fortunate because there was a sudden rush of well-paid interpreting jobs. Christmas decorations went up on rue de la Roquette. A series of power cuts left the quartier in freezing darkness. It was too cold to play football. Sealed in against the weather, cafés became intolerably smoky – even more intolerably smoky than they were the rest of the time. Lazare decided to throw an impromptu – and somewhat premature – Christmas party. We all had to come, he said, and in the unlikely event of any of us having girlfriends or wives they should ‘get drunk at my expense too’. Nicole, Sahra and Sally came and were all shocked by Lazare – shocked, that is, by how charming he was. In the presence of women his belligerence was transformed into equally extravagant courtesy. Luke’s friend Miles came too, and some other pals of Lazare’s. Everyone got drunk and danced and went away happy and those of us who worked there came back the next day, hung over, and cleaned everything up.
The Cassavetes season had finished months ago but an Antonioni season had just begun. The four friends went to see every film, too stunned by boredom and colour and space even to consider leaving. In the black-and-white films there was no colour to be seen, just the space and the boredom and people saying things. Some of what was said was lost on Luke because the dialogue was often in Italian and the subtitles in French. They were all in love with Monica Vitti, especially her green dress in Red Desert. Nicole liked the way the photos in Blow-Up became clearer as they were enlarged.
‘That was amazing,’ said Luke when they came out of L’Avventura.
‘Amazingly boring, you mean?’ said Sahra.
‘Yes, exactly.’
At weekends they went dancing. Luke, Sahra and Alex took Ecstasy. Nicole didn’t want to and this became an issue between her and Luke. Nicole was adamant that she did not need to take drugs in order to enjoy anything. She was happy to get stoned – which she had done only occasionally before meeting Luke – but she drew the line at anything chemical.
‘That’s so stupid, Nicole,’ said Luke. ‘Dancing is much better if you take E.’
‘But I love dancing anyway.’
‘That’s not the point. The point is that everything can always be improved.’
‘How can you ever be happy if you think that?’
‘How can you ever be happy if you don’t?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means everything can always be improved by drugs. It’s just a question of fitting the substance to the activity in question. Or finding the right activity for the substance. You admit that listening to music is much better if you’re stoned, right? And dancing is much better if you take—’
‘For you, yes.’
‘For everyone.’
‘But I don’t want to take it. I don’t try to persuade you not to. So why do you try to persuade me to?’
‘Because you’re missing out on something great. It can get to the point where there’s nothing but lights and music. You can feel yourself dissolving as an individual. You can feel yourself not existing.’
‘I love my existence.’
‘And we could do all that kissy-feely stuff you see people doing.’
‘We can do that anyway,’ said Nicole. ‘We can do it now if you like.’
Eventually Nicole was persuaded – by Sahra, who loved it – to try a half when they went to their favourite club, The Coast, as this near-derelict space bizarrely called itself.
The evening began at the cinema. Strange Days was showing and, as the lights went down, the four of them passed a bucket-sized Coca-Cola – ‘small’ by the gigantic standards of cinematic refreshment – along the row and swallowed their pills. Luke had seen the movie twice before but this time it blew his mind, totally. Coming up, he began to feel – in the film’s millennial argot – like he was wire-tripping, not so much seeing the film as jacking into it, living the experience of a movie which was a commentary on all the movies it had come out of: a pastiche of everything, even itself. Oh, it was perfect, perfect as the playback of Faith in her T-shirt and black bikini bottoms, teaching Lenny Nero how to roller-blade, and then heading back to the apartment and undressing in front of him. ‘So,’ she says, ‘you want to watch or you going to do?’ And Nero, sitting in his lousy apartment, looped into the past, feels and hears and sees himself say, ‘Watch and see.’ ‘I love your eyes Lenny,’ she says, moving beneath him. ‘I love the way they see.’
The apocalyptic party at the end of the film made them so desperate to get to the club that they practically ran there. As soon a
s they checked their coats they were like dogs let off a leash. The dance floor was crowded, the music pumping. With every track the surge of the music deepened. The lights poured into their faces. Under Nicole’s tuition Luke’s dancing had improved to the extent that he was no longer, in Alex’s words, ‘quite the embarrassment he used to be’. If it still seemed like he was having a seizure it was at least a rhythmic one. Luke looked at Nicole and Sahra. They had their arms round each other, laughing. Sahra moved over to Alex and they began dancing together. Nicole danced over to Luke and kissed him. She was wearing a sleeveless white dress, plimsolls. Her eyes were wet with laughter. Luke touched her arms, still dancing. The music surged and returned and paused, surged even while pausing, paused and surged and pumped again. The only light was a strobe: Luke saw Nicole’s arms and hair, coming and going, illuminated and vanishing, crackling into view and disappearing. Smoke began pouring on to the dance floor, so thick it was impossible to see. The trance deepened. The light became solid: purple, then green, then gold. Luke could see no one, not even Nicole, not even his own arms. There was no distance or direction, only the impenetrable light, the endless pump of the music.
Their eyes were still as wide as planets when they left the club, just as it was beginning to get light. Being outside made them realize how out of it they still were. It felt less like the city was getting light, more like it was reconstituting itself, as if it hadn’t been there in the night, as if it had dissolved and now, in the grey non-light, was becoming substantial again. As it did so they saw things they wouldn’t otherwise have noticed: bits of buildings, architectural details whose names only Nicole knew. It became lighter as they walked. At boulevard Richard Lenoir the market stalls were being assembled. Vans were crowded with boxes of fresh produce. Scales were being set up, prices written on cards. The immensity of the effort of getting the produce here – sowing, planting, ploughing, growing, digging up and transporting – seemed out of all proportion to the end results which, when all was said and done, were only versions of the onions, carrots and potatoes they had eaten for dinner the night before. It didn’t make sense.
‘It would be nice if somewhere was open,’ said Sahra.